‘Why?’
Why what? He shot her a sideways look and she was staring at the mess in front of them again and that was a relief, was it not? ‘Why do I want to help Yelverton get this wreck in some sort of order for his wedding to my niece’s former governess? Or why do people fall in love with one another when life would be so much simpler if they married for sense and a settled future?’
‘Why help with all this, of course,’ she said as if he was a fool to even ask.
‘Miss Grantham was Juno’s only real friend until recently. If not for her, Juno would have had nowhere to escape my mother’s heartless plans for her.’
‘She could have found you, my lord.’
‘All the way across the Channel and on to Paris? I very much doubt it. I must pity her lack of a real home to flee to even if you do not.’
‘That I do not. You would have made one wherever you happened to be if she only had the maturity to confide in you. Indeed, I doubt you would have gone in the first place if she had admitted how terrified she was of her grandmother and the ton.’
And there it was again, the warmth he had lived without for so long, and he wanted it for Juno if he could not have it for himself. ‘I did nothing to make her feel she had a right to confide in me.’
‘Most people think a child is best in the care of a woman, so I cannot see why you insist on blaming yourself for an honest mistake.’
‘You do not think women must be better with children than men, then?’
She shrugged and looked uncomfortable and he reminded himself she and Turner had not had children, so that could well be a sore spot in her life. ‘Some men are every bit as caring and loving as women and some females simply do not have the heart to put the welfare of a child before their own,’ she answered carefully and set him wondering if her mother was as cold and selfish as his had been. If so, someone had done a fine job raising her and her brother since they were far more open to love and life than he had ever been.
‘Is that the voice of experience?’ he asked because he could not help being interested in her and interest was not fascination.
‘No, my mother has always wanted the best for us in her own way.’
‘But her way is not your way?’
‘No, our standing in the world and marrying well was never important for me. I only wanted to be with a man I loved with all my heart.’
‘I can see both sides of the coin,’ he said and fully expected her to hotly declare he understood nothing about true love then, but she was silent, as if she was thinking about those sides and wondering how different her life would have been if she had been more wary.
She would be right about him, though; even as a spotty youth he had not managed to fall in love with an unsuitable girl. He had been too busy missing his brother and avoiding his mother’s fury because he was still alive when George was dead to have had enough feeling left for the moody ups and downs of calf love. He supposed he had been too young and alone at seventeen to do more than survive when his world had turned upside down. Being called by his brother’s title, knowing so much responsibility rested on his shoulders, had frozen the young man he should have been. Alaric Defford should have been free to do foolish things like fall in love with grocer’s daughters and run about town with the fastest set that would have had him. George would have eyed his pranks with tolerant amusement and tugged him out when he was drowning in River Tick.
Then his big brother would have said he must do something useful with his life as a younger son, like join the diplomatic corps or enter politics. Except by the time he had been old enough to live that life George had been dead. As Lord Stratford, Alaric could not be the wild second son because if he had been wild and irresponsible nobody would have been able to look after his thousands of acres, several lofty mansions and the legion of staff and tenants who made it all work.
‘Now I am older and perhaps a little wiser I realise a parent or guardian must worry about material things,’ Marianne said and they were talking about mothers. At least hers had cared enough to argue with her choice of husband. ‘At twenty years old I felt I had every right to ignore them and grab happiness with both hands. But how did we get around to my unwise marriage when we were talking about Darius and Fliss’s wedding only a moment ago, Lord Stratford?’
‘Would you consider becoming Juno’s companion when they are safely married?’ he said impulsively and found he was holding his breath for her answer.
At first she looked dumbfounded, then doubtful, as if she thought her ears were deceiving her. ‘I... Well, I had no idea. I do not know why you would think it a good notion,’ she said and shook her head as if that was all she could manage right now.
First he had kissed her, now he was blurting out his plans for a better future for her than staying here and feeling in the way or going back to her parents’ house and enduring a life she had obviously not enjoyed. How inept could one man be? ‘You would only have to keep her company and Juno likes you—that is all that really matters,’ he said, but she was clearly bewildered by the
